History
The Aurealis Award was established in 1995 by Chimaera Publications, the publishers of Aurealis Magazine. Unlike the other major Australian speculative fiction award, the Ditmar Award, it divides work into sub-genre and age categories, and is judged as such.
The award was originally given out in the following divisions: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Young Adult. Two separate awards are given in each division, one for novels and one for short stories. A fifth category for Children's books was added in 2001 for fiction for 8-12 year olds, with separate awards for "Short Fiction" and "Long Fiction". The Young Adult and Children's categories cover books in all three speculative fiction genres.
Submissions within a division are reviewed by a three judge panel, which selects each year's finalists and winners for their respective division. One of the judges on each panel is also the panel Convenor.
Two changes to the award structure were introduced in 2004. The awards became administered by Fantastic Queensland, a volunteer group that promotes Australian speculative fiction. A new division was added, Golden Aurealis, for both short stories and books, drawn from the winners of the other divisions.
There is also an associated Peter McNamara Conveners' Award for Excellence for "a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas in the relevant year, but may also take into account achievements over a number of years. This may also be for a non-fiction work, a collection or anthology, an art work, or for a body of work that brings credit and/or attention to the speculative fiction genre in that year". The award was originally known as Convenors' Award for Excellence and was renamed in 2002 after Peter McNamara (d. 2004), the original award Convenor, shortly after he was diagnosed with an incurable disease. It is given out at the discretion of the Convenors.
After six years of being the administrator, Fantastic Queensland ended their partnership with Chimaera Publications. On May 18, 2010 it was announced that Chimaera had entered a new deal with SpecFaction NSW who would administer the awards for 2010. Later in 2010 SpecFaction NSW announced that they reached a deal with HarperVoyager to be the exclusive sponsor for the 2010 Awards which would be held in May 2011.
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